As schools in Kashmir Valley reopened on Monday after over three months, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah asked hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and other separatists not to target children because they are going to schools.
The panel discussion titled 'Kashmir: From Turmoil to Transformation' was held on Thursday. It was moderated by columnist Se Hoon Kim and addressed by president of the Jammu and Kashmir Workers Party Mir Junaid, and Touseef Raina, president of the Municipal Council of Baramulla.
Hurriyat's moderate faction led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq said on Saturday that it was ready for talks with the Centre for resolution of Kashmir issue, but that the back channels had "fallen silent" for the past two months.
Pakistan on Friday claimed that any talks between the Indian government and separatist Kashmiri leaders will not be successful without its involvement.
Ahead of his talks with his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir will be meeting leaders of various separatist outfits from Kashmir over the next two days.
In the case of the killing of the IAF personnel in a terror attack in Srinagar in 1990, the court had summoned two witnesses for identification, but they could not appear citing medical reasons, Bhat said, adding that both of them had to come from outside.
Suggestions from certain quarters, including Pakistan and the United States, about having "self-rule" in Jammu and Kashmir would also figure in the talks with Musharraf, he said.
He said no reduction of forces within the state, could become 'an impediment in the peace process.'
The action follows the sealing of a Srinagar-based property of the founder and self-styled chief commander of the Al-Umar Mujahideen, Mushtaq Zargar alias 'Latram', on Thursday.
Geelani, who is visiting Jammu on November 12 and 13 to finalise the modalities of the talks, said the amalgam also plans to hold seperate meetings with Dogras of Jammu and Buddhists of Ladakh at a later date.
Ali Mohammad Mir, who is the prime accused in the kidnapping case after Malik, had taken Rubaiya Sayeed in his vehicle to Sopore from Srinagar and kept her at a guesthouse.
The Jammu and Kashmir high court has quashed the detention of the ailing chairman of Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani under the Public Safety Act and has ordered his release.
"Hurriyat has nothing to do with this meaningless exercise and will ask the people to stay away from it as well," Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the separatist amalgam's moderate faction, said after the Election Commission announced the seven-phased poll schedule for the border state.
In the last three years, the Union Territory administration has invoked 311 (2)(c) of the Constitution to sack more than 50 employees, who were allegedly operating in shadows within the government and drawing a salary from the public exchequer, however, they were helping Pakistani terror outfits, providing logistics to terrorists, propagating terrorists' ideology, raising terror finances and furthering secessionist agenda, officials said.
Two persons were killed when policemen fired on protestors in Qamarwari and Sangrama areas of Kashmir valley on Monday, according to official sources.
The Centre is acting tough with Kashmir's separatist leaders by taking on their foreigner wives, refusing them to stay with their husbands in Jammu and Kashmir.
"We will be meeting Musharraf on April 16. This has been verbally communicated to us," Hurriyat Conference's founder-chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq told PTI.
Highly-placed sources said an invitation will be sent as soon as Hurriyat leaders agree to hold talks with Patil.
The Centre also favours a dialogue with the Naxalites, said Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
Ahead of the visit of an all-party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir, political parties on Saturday pitched for holding dialogue with "all stakeholders", including Hurriyat, to douse the unrest and banning the use of pellet guns by security forces.
The arrest of Mohammed Nayeem Khan, president of the National Front, came a day before a party convention.
Hardline Hurriyat Conference leader Masarat Alam Bhat, who had been in custody under the Public Safety Act since April 2015, was released from Kathua district jail but subsequently re-arrested in another case.
The Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said that the deputy prime minister has agreed to hold 'unconditional' talks.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's message is loud and clear that anyone acting against the unity, sovereignty, and integrity of the nation will not be spared and face the full wrath of the law.
'They (the Centre) have been talking in Mizoram to militant organisations... I don't think that option should be closed (in Kashmir),' the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said.
The Mirwaiz said barring the opening of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, the Centre had taken no positive step to build the confidence of the people.
Significantly, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in the latest issue of its mouthpiece Organiser, had criticised the BJP for ignoring the Hurriyat's visit to Pakistan.
Sources said the visit was likely to take place in the second week of December as the Mirwaiz was scheduled to attend two Organisation of Islamic Conference meets.
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